From Our Users

In the September/October issue of Quiltmaker you’ll find Janice Averill’s gorgeous Magic Stars quilt. When you look at this quilt, you wouldn’t believe that the individual block looks like this: On Quiltmaker’s blog, Janice shares how she drew the block in EQ7 and gives a peek into her design process. It’s quite interesting to read about diagonal designs and see her work evolve from grayscale to color. The Magic Stars quilt is also the focus for this month’s Scrap Squad and you should see the beautiful variations this month’s crew is sewing up! Margaret Kennedy used EQ7 to play with color and layout: And Beth Kerr Helfter re-drafted to a size she was more comfortable working with and combined four blocks into one larger block like this: Click here to check out all the Scrap Squad posts for Magic Stars! Images in this post courtesy of Quiltmaker’s Quilty Pleasures blog.

Anne Underhill recently sent us a photo of her quilt to post in the Quilt Gallery, but it was so cute I just had to share it here on the blog too! Anne used blocks from Angie Padilla’s Ship Ahoy! collection to make this adorable quilt for her new grandson.What a perfect use for these appliqué blocks! Anne says: “This was my first attempt at an EQ7 quilt. Custom Set quilt layout made it easy to swap the appliqué blocks around and then add ‘fillers’ until I had a sensible and pleasing layout. I really enjoyed the process and learned my way around the software at the same time.” Anne’s design in EQ7: “My grandson lives by the sea so I was delighted to find Angie’s wonderful ‘Ship Ahoy!’ designs which I could use within my EQ7 software. The appliqué is fused raw edge and machined using blanket stitch. I’m

EQ7 can be used for more than quilt design! Cindi of Seamstobeyouandme.com emailed us to share the new sewing room she designed using EQ7. I think I would shed a few tears if I had to leave behind Cindi’s previous sewing room, but she’s got a great plan for her new space! Cindi says, ” …I’m loving being able to easily design things other than quilts in EQ! We’re getting ready to move, which means a new sewing room. Decided to try EQ rather than graph paper. LOVE.IT.” Check out all the details of her new sewing room plans on her blog!

There are so many different inspirations for quilting. Creating a keepsake for someone special is probably at the top of the list. Last August, my oldest son was getting married and, as a parent, you always want to do something special as a wedding gift – create a keepsake. Since I had worked for Electric Quilt for over 20 years, wasn’t the obvious gift a wedding quilt? For an avid quilter, the answer would be an easy yes. For me, well, the answer was not so obvious. Yes, I know how to quilt, but I certainly would not call myself an avid quilter. My inspiration, or should I say, my “feeling of pressure” to make a quilt started in early 2013. I’m in product development here at EQ and was knee-deep in the release of EQStitch in early 2013. All I had time for at that point was to “think”

Mary Puckett has been designing in EQ7 for years. Her “Zippy Quilts” are fun, colorful and modern. And they’ve been getting a lot of attention lately! Mary recently had her quilt featured it Modern Quilts Unlimited’s Summer Issue. It was designed in EQ7! Mary says, “I used the crazy quilt blocks to get some idea of what it would look like, but then the actual piecing was totally improvised. I did get some idea from my EQ design that I wanted to use tiny pieces rather than larger ones. I drew the little star in EQ7 using the regular block draw, then printed paper piecing templates. That’s the only way I’d ever get anything that little pieced accurately!” Mary has also recently used EQ7 to design an award winning quilt for The Quilt Alliance. (The Quilt Alliance‘s goal is to ” document, preserve,

If you’ve ever called our customer service line, chances are you’ve heard Linda’s friendly voice on the other end of the line. Linda has worked at EQ for several years, but she just recently designed her first quilt in EQ7! “She’s just now using EQ7?!?” you ask…. Well, Linda has a Mac at home so, along with many other people, she’s been patiently waiting for the Mac release of EQ7. And now that she’s had a chance to work with the software a bit, she has a finished quilt to show off. Linda thought she was just sharing her quilt with those of us in the office, but we all loved it so much I wanted to share it on the blog too! Linda designed the quilt to use with a Block of the Month program she did. She followed this tutorial on the blog to import photos of her

It’s not just for quilt design! John Pietkiewicz uses EQ software for his gorgeous stained glass designs. John says: “I got into stained glass design in 2010 and was directed to EQ by a local quilt shop in Henniker NH whom I had shown some of my stained glass design work which mimicked quilt patterns. At the time I was drawing designs by hand and using colored pencils.” All designs/photos are copyrighted John K Pietkiewicz 2010-2014 Great work, John! We’ve seen EQ used for tile design, room planning, and even for beautifying traffic signal boxes. Do you have an alternative use for EQ7? Tell us about it!

Copyright

Thank you for visiting Behind the Mouse, the Electric Quilt Blog. We are happy to share content with you in hopes that we can all learn and create together. But please be aware that all content and images on this website are copyrighted to The Electric Quilt Company, our guest bloggers, and the EQ users who share their content here.